SPECIALIZING IN ‘TALL TALES’
Storyteller Joe Hayes writes new book for children
These long winter nights have been the traditional time in many cultures for families to gather around the hearth and tell the traditional tales that have been handed down over generations.
But storyteller and author Joe Hayes most often has been seen in Santa Fe through the long light of summer, telling tall tales and
Hispanic folk stories on the grounds of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian — this coming season will mark 35 years that he has been entertaining audiences there.
He’s also spent a lot of time in New Mexico schools bending the ear of young people with tales of tortillas and rattlesnakes and much more, all grounded in the Southwest.
Cinco Puntos Press recently released “Grandpa’s Hal-la-loo-ya Hambone!,” the latest in more than 20 books Hayes has produced for kids. This one brings us to lean days of few crops and even less money, reminiscent of the Great Depression, when a hambone, used sparingly and repeatedly, might be the only way to flavor a family’s meal of beans.
When Grandpa’s false teeth fall down the well, the hambone plays a key role in retrieving them.
If reading the book aloud doesn’t do the trick for you or the kids, you can always go to YouTube. Hayes spent all last summer recording more than 100 of his stories on video and posting them at www.youtube.com/user/joehayesstoryteller.
How did it all get started? “I just blundered into it,” Hayes, now 71, said of his storytelling. “I began by telling stories to my children.”
He actually got his start in the job market as a teacher (he majored in English in college), but also worked in mineral exploration.
“Both of my brothers are scientists,” Hayes said. “There was an emphasis on science in my family. But language also fascinated me.”
Born in Pennsylvania, but with a good portion of his time growing up in Benson, Ariz., Hayes said he completely identifies himself as a son of the Southwest.
“I was fascinated by the Hispanic culture — well, we called it Mexican then,” he said. “I hung around a lot of guys who were Mexican. I was interested in their traditions.”
After hunting minerals around Tucson, he decided he needed a degree in geology. But when he went to the University of Arizona placement office, he saw a lot of teaching jobs, and the Los Alamos superintendent was recruiting. So 40 years ago, Hayes came to Los Alamos to teach, but also sometimes told stories in his English class and went across the street to tell stories to the elementary school kids.
People began calling and asking him to tell tales to various groups, until Hayes began to think that, just maybe, he might be able to make a living at it.
“It really helped that I came to New Mexico,” he said. “It had a really strong traditional culture — although it was pretty diluted by the ’70s ... I always liked folklore and, like so many people of my generation, I was influenced by folk music, people like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.”
So he thumbed through the library card catalogs to find some books about storytelling and learned about the tradition, plus discovered many Hispanic folk tales that were gathered and published by Aurelio Espinosa and Juan Rael, both working in academia.
Almost 100 percent of those tales had their roots in Spain, Hayes said, although some details may have been adapted to suit specific circumstances in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado — a coyote substituted for a fox or a tortilla for an omelet, for example.
One interesting detail, he added, is that while Pueblo people adopted many of the Spanish tales into their repertoire, the exchange didn’t go both ways — Spanish settlers didn’t appear to incorporate Pueblo tales into their storytelling.
Those Spanish folktales were his initial specialty, although about 10 years ago he expanded into tall tales, such as one told in his latest book.
Tall tales “are the classic American story,” Hayes said, explaining they popped up all across the frontier as the Europeans headed West. “It was an important part of the humor, especially if you told a made-up experience about yourself.”
Whether it was people traveling in wagon trains or cowboys on roundups or residents in isolated areas, people had to find a way to entertain themselves in the evening after the chores were done, he noted.
Will the traditional stories last? Hayes notes that social media is leading to people talking a lot about themselves, with even verbal storytelling often focused on people describing their actual experiences to others.
But he often finds teachers and parents telling him that they heard his stories when they were kids, and wanted to have their students or children share that experience in turn. “That to me is very satisfying,” Hayes said.